Articles

The telecoms company Lime announced on Thursday 12 July 2012, a significant downsizing of its workforce in SVG. This downsizing comes at a bad time, with the level of unemployment already at such a seriously high level and many households struggling to feed their families.

It is very bad news when companies are having to sack people.

Between 2001 and 2012, SVG has been in a sustained period of financial pressure. Under poor management, our economy has become weaker and weaker and taxpayers' money has been wasted. The table shows that the ULP regime has squandered over $3 billion dollars between 2001 and 2012.

Budget estimates 2001 to 2012

$2,343,000,000

NCB fatal overdraft

$170,000,000

Estimated ALBA bank loan and Petro-Caribe money

$500,000,000

Total

$3,013,000,000

(Researched by Ivan O'Neal BSc(Hons), MSc, MBA)

Virtually all that can be seen for the squandered billions is the Belle Isle jail, three new police stations, a new electronic gun firing range and an unhappy nation. There has been no return on this very large sum of money.

It takes a special kind of incompetence to waste over $3 billion. One must be a Doctor of Incompetence to spend over $3 billion and leave our county as an empty shell with no university, no factories, no net new creation of jobs, no money circulating, high unemployment, high crime, an agricultural sector in tatters and thousands of people going hungry.

The Honourable Dr Ralph Gonsalves is not a university graduate in finance. He has clearly shown that when it comes to finance and economics, he is feeling his way in the dark and getting it wrong. The most painful thing about this is that SVG has so much potential to become a prosperous nation, but instead our people are suffering.

Mr Ivan O'Neal has a Masters in Budgeting, Economic Modelling and Macro Economics. Mr O'Neal strongly believes that SVG must adopt a strong, disciplined structural adjustment of the economy and bring in proper, competent management of SVG's finances. The poor management of finance is the core problem of the country. The ULP regime has shown that they have severe difficulties in dealing with figures.

The solution to our country's stagnation has to be mass job creation; the significantly high rate of unemployment is putting far too much pressure on the poor and low income families.

We have millions of gallons of fresh water running in to the sea everyday going to waste, but this water could be exported in bulk tanker loads to create jobs and revenue. To kick-start economic growth we need a fish canning and export factory, VAT abolished and taxes to be lower, to adopt greenhouse production of short crops and reduce imports to create jobs in SVG.

The time has come for a Green revolution and a Green economy driven by science, technology and the creation of new industries, new products and thousands of new jobs. An SVG Green Party government will drive poverty from our shores and replace it with prosperity and vitality.